


What I Wish I'd Known

by Kaylin881



Series: Death doesn't discriminate [1]
Category: American Revolution RPF, Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Groundhog Day, Human Disaster Aaron Burr, Human Disaster Alexander Hamilton, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-05-25 14:51:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6199327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaylin881/pseuds/Kaylin881
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alexander Hamilton dies in New York in 1804, of a bullet wound.</p><p>Alexander Hamilton is born on the island of Nevis in 1757, with the memory of pain echoing in his chest. Somehow, he is convinced, this is all Burr's fault.</p><p>(I seriously considered titling this "Rewind".)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Waiting in the wings

By the time he is five years old, Alex has learned not to talk about the memories.

When he was first beginning to talk – at the unusually early age of thirteen months – he used to confuse his parents terribly by saying words he couldn’t possibly have heard from them, like “tea” and “France” or, most confusingly, “Eliza”. The few times he attempted “Burr” slipped beneath their notice, disguised as the usual baby-babble. As he grew in fluency, body catching up with the impatient brain, bigger words and longer sentences crept in. Almost before he could walk, little Alexander would come out with phrases such as “Don’t wanna king!” or, even more impressive, “Constitution!”

Now, he does his best to act like a normal child – or rather, as normal as it is possible to act when one is Alexander Hamilton, and one’s primary models for childish behaviour are oneself and one’s own equally brilliant children. Fortunately, he has come to the conclusion that the adults in his life are remarkably stupid. He cannot understand how he failed to notice this fact the first time around, but it is nonetheless evident. The point is, they don’t seem to notice his occasional slips into less childlike modes of speech or action. His mother, in fact, seems quite relieved that he prefers sitting and reading to rushing around noisily. He did enough of that the first time around.

For some reason, playing with toy guns doesn’t seem to appeal either.

***

By ten, he is half-convinced it was all a dream, or a story he made up in his head. Although he feels like he already knows some of the things he learns, or there are days when he knows exactly what is about to happen before it does, there are still many things that surprise him. The memories that are his but not-his begin to fade, and he is content to live in the present.

Then, they move back to St. Croix.

“Home,” his mother tells him. And it does feel like home, even though Alex has never set foot on the island before, was born years after his mother moved to Nevis. He knows the feel of this sand under his feet, knows this house, this street… He knows, too, that his father will leave. He says nothing, partly a child’s superstitious thought that saying it will make it true, and partly an adult voice in the back of his mind saying words like ‘ _contaminate the experiment’_ and ‘ _independent verification’_. He says nothing, and James Hamilton Sr. leaves them on St. Croix, goes back to Nevis. _Independent verification_ , he thinks, and starts to examine the memories with a purpose.

***

Alex finds that many of his memories, in particular the early ones – the ones he is now reliving – have faded with time, and are unreliable. A few landmarks stick out above the fog of 50 years’ distance, but the rest is indistinguishable. Those landmarks, though, are the ones to watch out for. A year later, when a fever begins to sweep the island, he worries. One night, he wakes in a cold sweat from a too-real nightmare of his mother’s dead face. The chill of her limp arm across his waist lingers for hours, making his skin crawl.

He knows through experience, for once gained in his second life, that he is unlikely to be believed if he warns his mother of her impending death. She will only smile, and ruffle his hair, and ask him if he isn’t too old to be believing in that sort of thing. The nightmare would be seen as a child’s simple fear, not a premonition. For weeks he barely sleeps, eats only the bare minimum to placate his mother, and tries frantically to think of some way to change his – past? Future? Which is it?

Fifty-eight years of hard-learned patience compel him to wait, and do nothing. So he does nothing, says nothing, holds his tongue – ‘ _For once in your life,’_ says a voice in his head – and only _smiles_ when people ask him if he is alright. _‘You see, Burr?’_ he finds himself thinking. _‘I can do it too. You’re nothing special.’_

***

She dies. Again.

Alex doesn’t. Again.

***

He is twelve, and might as well be an orphan. They move in with their cousin, “they” being Alexander and James. Oh – James survived the fever too. Never even got sick. He’s even more annoying and big-brotherly than before – both before the fever and _before_ before. Alexander avoids him as much as possible, curling up in out-of-the-way corners with any book he can find, especially ones he hasn’t read before. He devours information as fast as he can get hold of it – faster – and goes looking for more. When their cousin dies, leaving them orphans, his only real reaction is annoyance that his new job will cut into his writing time.

He works his way up at Beekman & Cruger, flying through the ranks from errand boy to clerk to acting manager, and barely notices when he turns thirteen, then fourteen, then fifteen. He has no _time_ to notice. Between working (always working) and his job he barely has time to eat or sleep, only grudgingly sparing the time to interact with other people. They’re so dull, though. So small-thinking. He much prefers to read, and thereby escape, however briefly, into a world populated with far more interesting people and places. Alexander decided, at some point between his mother’s death and his cousin’s, that he had to get off St. Croix as soon as he could. It’s stifling him, constraining him; he doesn’t have space to breathe.

***

He knew there was something he was forgetting. A tiny flicker of unease, of something he should be watching for, ignored. He remembers now, of course. Too late.

The hurricane rips through St. Croix, destroying almost everything in its path. Alexander hides, and waits, and seethes. Is this how it ends? He would scream to the heavens in fury, rail against whatever God sent him back only to die, but his mouth is dry, and the storm outside so deafeningly loud he can scarcely hear himself think. Sixty-two years of working, striving, reaching – does it all end here? _‘No,’_ his mind whispers. _‘This is not the end but the beginning.’_

After, he writes it down, all the pain and the uncertainty of waiting for the storm to pass, the horror – drowning even the familiar familiarity, the bone-deep certainty that he’s seeing this _again_ – of stepping out into a world fallen silent and still and flat. He writes it down, letting all his emotions pour onto the page as they will, and sends it off before he can think too hard about it. An older version of himself winces at the memory of another publication, just as raw and emotional and private, that _he should not have/has not_ let see the light of day. But this – this is Alexander’s ticket out of here. So he sends it, and he waits.

***

The moment he can no longer properly make out the shapes of his former co-workers on the shore, and therefore knows that neither can they see him, Alexander performs a very small, very quiet dance of victory. He takes a deep breath of the sea air, somehow so much sweeter from the deck of a ship than it ever was on land, and turns towards the bow.

 _‘I am never going back,’_ he thinks. It is half a prayer, half a vow. _‘I am never going back there again.’_


	2. In New York you can be a new man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somehow, he had managed to forget how cold New York was in the winter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regarding historical accuracy, or lack thereof.  
> As you may be aware, there are two possible options for Hamilton’s birthdate, in 1755 and 1757. I’m going with the later one because, while our Alexander may have been blessed with an overabundance of many excellent qualities, he only has a small supply of patience. In other news, there may or may not be a sequel/companion piece to this, from Burr’s point of view. I’ll finish this one first, I think.

Somehow, he had managed to forget how cold New York was in the winter. When he steps off the boat in October, there is already an unfamiliar chill in the air, tearing through his second hand coat the way his pen sometimes tears through the cheap paper which is all he has to write on. He made it, he is here, and suddenly all of the passion, the frantic drive, that has buoyed him up and sustained the breakneck pace of the last few years, in the hope of getting out – getting here – is gone.

He did it. He is in New York. Now what?

Alexander feels every iota of youthful, almost-sixteen-year-old, rebellious, defiant energy drain out of him as he stands dumbly on the quay, the small bag containing all his possessions forgotten at his feet. In this moment, every one of his sixty-two years – spanning two lives, two countries, two centuries – feels like a weight on his shoulders, rooting him to the spot. With his hunger for freedom sated for the present, his immediate plans achieved, he takes a long-overdue breath, looks around, and realizes with a jolt that he has no idea what to do next.  

Oh, not in the practical sense, of course. His sponsor has arranged his accommodation and preparatory schooling, all paid for in advance by postal order, and he has the advantage of memory over the last time he stood in this position. In fact, Alexander muses, he could probably find his way blindfolded, if it were not for the risk of being mugged – and, of course, he would look quite the fool walking through the streets with his necktie over his eyes instead of in its proper place about his collar. Never mind, then. Shaking his head to dislodge the momentary whimsy, he picks up his bag and begins to walk. He can contemplate his purpose in life once he has somewhere to sit down, and a hot meal inside him.

***

Hours later, warm and dry in his new lodgings and having acquired the first installment of his sponsorship fund, Alexander digs out pen, ink and paper to capture his whirling thoughts, which have only with the greatest effort been content to wait upon his leisure to consider them before intruding upon his consciousness. He needs a plan of action, needs to know what he wants from his new life. The last few years on St. Croix have been a blur of frantic working and writing, of trying to work his way up and out while at the same time writing down all of his ideas, all his older self’s genius, before it could fade back into the fog of his memory. Now, he needs to stop looking back, and begin to look forward. While there are so many things he is proud of about his old life, so many things he has spent the last decade wishing he still had, there are others he is not so proud of. Some things, he regrets, and he is almost glad to be reliving his youth if it means he can undo his mistakes.

He begins to list them, in the shorthand he developed (will develop) as a lawyer: _Save Philip (need him to be born first – marry Betsey). Save John – don’t let him go to South Carolina after Yorktown. Don’t sleep with Maria Reynolds._ He underlines the latter point twice, the tip of his cheaply-bought pen snapping from the unnecessary vigor with which he scratches the second line. Of all the stupid mistakes he made in his previous life, that last seems the most insanely idiotic. He may be the same person, or almost, but Alexander cannot for the life of him fathom what his older (younger) self was thinking to make such a colossal error of judgment. And then to compound it by revealing the whole affair to the public! No, he will not be doing _that_ again, of this much he is certain.

But all of that is a long way off, even if events run differently in this life, and there are more immediate concerns. The next step, of course, is Elizabethtown, and this much he cannot change, as much as he would be glad to skip over that particular episode of tedium. For all that Alexander knows himself to be ready for King’s, or Princeton, or whichever will take him, he will not be able to convince anyone around him of the fact without at least a year of documented, formal schooling. And besides, if he recalls, it was at Elizabethtown – in the town itself, not the academy – that he happened, for the first time of many, upon a Mr. Aaron Burr.

Burr is a puzzle.

In the beginning, they were (will be, might be) friends, unless that was the delusion of a young, hyperactive student’s mind. But Alexander, for the last fifteen years, has not been feeling extraordinarily friendly towards the man who, it could be argued, is responsible for his current state of being. He remembers his resolution, just before the duel, to waste his first shot, to fire into the woods – but only the first. This intention he followed through, out of a newly-rediscovered Christian nature of forgiveness, and Burr answered him with a mortal wound. He had been willing to forgive at the time, to turn the other cheek as he was supposed to, but that was when he thought his reward would be merely the final oblivion of death. Death had never held any great fear for Alexander, not until he experienced it for himself. By the end, he even looked forward to seeing those who had gone ahead of him – Washington, Laurens, Philip, his mother… He supposes, in a way, his wish has been granted. This, though, he thinks, suddenly angry, is anything but heaven. In fact, he muses, thinking back over the previous fifteen – almost sixteen now – years, he would judge this dreary trudge through his long-buried past to be closer to hell.

Very well.

If his punishment for that moment of forgiveness, of weakness, is to struggle once more through his own personal hell, then he knows what he must do. He bends, with renewed energy, to his paper and begins to scratch out a plan.


	3. I'm at your service, sir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AKA the chapter in which there is Burr. And also Mulligan and Cato, but mostly Burr.

Mulligan is exactly as Alexander remembers him. A little less wrinkled, and a little more carefree, as he was when they first met, but otherwise the tailor is just the same as the last time Alexander saw him, a year or so after the war. It is strange to think that, for this younger Hercules Mulligan, all of that – the war, his work as a spy, tea with Washington – is still to come, still in his future. Strange, too, that they are not friends, although that at least is soon rectified. Alexander has never had any trouble making friends, when he makes the effort to try.

He tries, this time around, with Cato, whom he had completely ignored in his first life. The Mulligans’ young slave is wary at first, but soon enough he has succumbed to the not-yet-infamous Hamilton charm, and chatters away merrily with Alexander on a wide range of subjects. Alexander talks, but also listens, and thinks very hard for a long time about the state of the world that has decreed this brilliant youth to be property, to be less than human, simply because of the color of his skin. It troubles him, niggling at the back of his mind like a loose tooth, and in an attempt to soothe the persistent itch he adds it to his growing list of wrongs to set right. The paper is full of crossings-out and addendums, his mind constantly working to refine and redevelop the plan.

Mulligan does not understand his sudden interest in Cato, but that is nothing new. Alexander has always been aware that he was in some respects incomprehensible to others, even his closest friends, and the Mulligan of the past (future) was never shy about admitting it. Despite his lack of understanding, however, this Mulligan is content to accept the strange behavior as just one more oddity from the genius he has invited into his home.

There is a sense of comforting familiarity in their interactions. Mulligan is a known quantity; Alexander can tell exactly what he will say or do in response to each changing circumstance. Whereas the same trait was stifling in his brother and other acquaintances on St. Croix, here he revels in the sheer predictability of it, the reassurance that he is in control of his destiny this time. He has not yet changed the future beyond his ability to predict or remedy.

With this in mind, then, he believes himself fully prepared when the day arrives for his first meeting with Burr.

He is careful to recreate the situation exactly, setting off into the town at the same time and retracing his steps from that day, forty-nine years ago and yet a moment away. Everything is as it should be: the same people, the same weather, even down to overheard conversations in the public houses. And sure enough, Burr shows up, right on time. Unfortunately, that seems to be the last point in the encounter to go the way Alexander was expecting.

***

“Aaron Burr, sir!”

The figure at the other end of the street halts its purposeful motion and turns precisely on one heel to face Alexander. It is, he notes with relief, the one he was searching for. Aaron Burr, seventeen years old and freshly graduated from Princeton College, stares at him across the suddenly vast space between them. “How do you know who I am?” he asks, every word weighed and measured in that way he always had, as if he were conserving them against some future disaster. The tone is so familiar, so very Burr, that it takes Alexander a moment to realize that the question is different – and that he does not have an answer.

“Um…” _‘Come on, brain! Where is that genius now?’_ Alexander mocks himself silently. “I… You were pointed out to me earlier today, by a mutual acquaintance,” he lies swiftly. “He described you as something of a prodigy, if I recall.” There, that ought to satisfy him.

“This acquaintance must have tremendous eyesight,” Burr says, “to recognize me even before I arrived in town this afternoon.” Even his damned smirk is the same, although Alexander saw it less and less as they grew older and more distant. His dark eyes are fixed on Alexander’s face as the two men slowly close the distance that separates them.

“I, uh…” There are not, and have never been, a great many people with the power to remove from Alexander Hamilton his formidable powers of speech. Angelica Schuyler was one, John Laurens another, and until today he was convinced that George Washington was the third and last. “You see –”

Burr, for once the less patient of the two, interrupts him. “But you appear to have the advantage of me, sir.”

Alexander blinks. That is a lie if he has ever heard one. He has to run the sentence through his mind a second time before the meaning becomes clear, although since this is Burr, there is almost certainly a second or even third layer of nuance too subtle for him to catch. “I beg your pardon, sir. My name is Alexander Hamilton; I’m at your service, sir.”

“And I at yours, Mr. Hamilton.” He even manages to make it sound sincere, the little snake-in-training.

They shake hands, still locked for a second in a bizarre staring match that neither man will acknowledge or concede, before simultaneously wrenching their eyes away and to the side. By unspoken agreement – one of the few things they have ever agreed on, Alexander thinks wildly – they set off together down the street, walking side-by-side. As ever, it quickly turns into a contest: first one, then the other, lengthens his stride in an effort to draw ahead of his companion. Alexander takes a perverse pleasure in having, for once, the advantage thanks to his extra inch in height. After a lifetime of being the shortest person in sight, it is gratifying to be turning the tables on another.

The two of them end up in a bar, where Burr offers to buy Alexander a drink. He refuses, partly out of stubborn pride and partly because the longer he spends in Burr’s company, the more he is reminded why they ended up shooting each other. The man is insufferably, smugly un-opinionated, more arrogant even than Alexander himself – which is both impressive and infuriating – and seems completely oblivious to Alexander’s dislike. For some unfathomable reason, he seems determined to become Hamilton’s friend, a complete reversal from the first time they met when it was Alexander forcing his way into Burr’s life.

He decides, provisionally, that he approves of the change.


	4. Gotta holler just to be heard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New York, meet Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton - oh, you've met?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay - more than a year! I was reminded that I really ought to finish and post this chapter when a friend of mine - on a completely different site - turned out to have read and enjoyed this story. Hi, consumptive_sphinx, if you're reading this!

After a summer of wavering backwards and forwards between the two options, he sends his application to King’s College: partly in the interest of changing as little as possible, partly for the sake of his fond memories of the place, and in large part because it gives him access to the growing revolutionary gatherings in the nearby park. To alleviate suspicion – from whom, a part of him wonders fleetingly – he applies to Princeton as well. Although he manages to avoid punching the bursar this time, he does succeed in provoking the odious man sufficiently during their argument to ensure his application will be rejected.

New York is heating up, the younger population becoming increasingly polarized as tension rises with Britain. Armed with his memories, Alexander navigates the growing storm with something approaching ease, although from outside it no doubt appears anything but easy. He spends even less effort on his studies than last time, relying on the fact that he already _knows_ everything he is being asked to learn, in favor of becoming increasingly involved with the Sons of Liberty and other like-minded groups. The autumn of 1773 goes by in a blur of debate club meetings with Rob and Ned, interminable lectures during which he writes essays while pretending to take notes, and evenings spent sneaking out to attend meetings on the Common.

Everything comes to a head in December. Alexander wakes up on the morning of the 17th to find the entire city – and most likely the rest of the state as well – buzzing with talk of the Boston Tea Party. Just as he had in his previous life, although with less panic and more efficiency, he grabs paper and pens, pulls on his least threadbare coat, and heads down to Boston to get the full story before anyone else can report on it. Once again, he succeeds by the narrowest of margins.

America is rising up once again, gearing itself up for the greatest war of the century, and New York feels like the pounding heart of the maelstrom. One can hardly walk down the street without overhearing the ever more heated debates between former friends, or seeing yet another pamphlet either lauding or condemning the British monarchy. Alexander is by no means immune to the increasingly charged atmosphere, and indeed is often the most passionate voice in the room when the issue is raised. He draws on the conviction granted by his premonitions of success to inspire greater dedication than ever in his spellbound listeners –those who are willing to listen, that is.

While he can draw quite a crowd from among his fellow students – his peers, for all they look so damnably young to be joining the revolution – Alexander has a harder time commanding the attention, much less the respect, of his ‘elders’. He remembers speaking before the President of the United States, arguing with the Secretary of State in front of the entire Cabinet and _winning_ , but from the perspective of everyone else those positions will not even exist for another half-decade. To them, he is simply one over-eager student among many, with big ideas but no more weight behind them than the next bright-eyed would-be revolutionary. Alexander is more aware by the day that he is sixty-four and looks seventeen, and finds this state of affairs utterly, ludicrously infuriating. He knows he is right, he has the evidence to back up his opinions, but it isn’t as though he could explain that to his doubters without being taken for mad.

And so he waits. Bows his head as men half his real age dismiss him as a foolish youth, feigns rapt attention while boys only a few years older than he looks make a sham of instructing him in combat. He has far more fighting experience than anyone else in the room, possibly more than the lot of them put together. And still, he stays silent. Still, he waits. If he only has one advantage on his younger self, it is that he has learned the value – and necessity – of patience.

He doesn’t often think, these days, of where he learned that patience, or from whom. In truth, he is not entirely sure what Burr is doing right now, the man having been infuriatingly close-lipped about his younger days. Regardless of the details, Alexander’s destined executioner is far away from New York just at this moment. Out of sight, and – mostly, apart from a few fleeting thoughts – out of mind.

Spring turns to summer, and summer to fall. The winter of 1774 brings with it a new challenge, a welcome relief from the tedium of hurry-up-and-wait, the endless movement and excitement which achieves nothing of substance. Alexander begins to suspect that time is playing tricks on him; he is almost certain this year went by much faster when he did not know how it would end.

One thing is undeniable: Seabury, the aforementioned distraction, is even more infuriating a second time.

A few years ago, he wouldn’t have believed it possible. But then, a few decades ago he wouldn’t have believed in time travel, or whatever is responsible for his current situation. On the other hand, he very much doubts there is anything supernatural at work in the case of Samuel Seabury, alias A. W. Farmer, also known – but only in Alexander’s head – as a sanctimonious, ass-kissing, traitorous, lily-livered buffoon. With the memory of the Adams Pamphlet echoing in his mind, he is careful to confine himself to criticism of Seabury’s arguments, rather than his supposedly anonymous person.

The details of writing his two glorious refutations the first time around are lost irretrievably in the blur of noise and excitement that sweeps across the pre-war years of his memory. He rewrites first one, then the other after Seabury’s reply, from scratch. No-one will notice the difference. If anything, he would say that the new versions are better, informed by three decades of watching a new country grow up, by his carefully-concealed knowledge of just how well the war will go. As before, his publications are a success. As before, Seabury is too craven to respond to the second – _or_ , says his older and wiser mind, _just barely intelligent enough to know that he has met his match, and more_.

The thought, and the taste of victory in Seabury’s silence, fills him with a dark, vicious satisfaction.

It’s time to stop waiting.


End file.
